Beyonc said on Oscar’s red carpet Sunday: “It’s a wonderful year to be an African-American actor.”
If only they’d get the names right.

At Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards — the indie Oscars — newcomer Shareeka Epps, the African-American who won best actress for “Half Nelson,” was called “Shakira” twice by presenter Felicity Huffman

“Oh, my name’s Shareeka by the way,” Epps said from the Spirit Awards stage.

At the end of the night, the unbearable Sarah Silverman, who hosted, said “Next year’s host will be Facility Hoffman.” Good one, Sarah.

blige, the top nominee with eight nods, is one well put-together broad. looking nice in a pants suit, with all her moving parts on display, she handled the gauntlet of TV on her path to her limo with practiced professionalism. we got her briefly. she’s been through all this many times before.

mary j., coming off nine billboard music award wins last week, and two american music awards trophies before that, was nominated for song and record of the year, the same categories as corinne bailey rae. blige apparently is up for eight awards this year.

there will be no catfight in february on CBS. these gals are too calm for that.

it took an hour of hot air, but the nominations ordeal finally began when presenters ludacris, rascal flatts, kt tunstall we like HER), james blunt, corinne bailey rae, chris brown, amy lee, justin timberlake and mary j. blige were brought on stage at the music box, the down-at-the-heels theater on hollywood boulevard.

most presenters looked like their luggage was lost on the flight over. dirty jeans and uncombed hair for the boys seemed to be the order of the day. of course, the look was intentional. blunt looked like the homeless guys outside.

girls were much better. tunstall was the most appealing in a nice black outfit.

it became clear after the first 15 minutes of the billboard music awards that nobody very good turned up in fear of being blacklisted from the grammy telecast.
so the billboards was reduced to gwen stefani on career rebound trying to make yodeling cool, a bunch of 10th rate rappers grabbing their crotches, some band called nickelback whose music nobody on the planet has knowingly heard, and a big wrap-up that embalmed a member of ’70s frat boy favorites ZZ Top along with other fogettables.
the only thing missing was john mayer — but he’s playing through eternity on a Direct TV free channel that’s causing me to consider going back to cable.
OK, we’re ready for the grammys. back to drawing table, billboard. time for (another) redesign. BORING!

why can’t courtney love just go somewhere and enjoy all that nirvana money? thank of all the great dope she could do in the privacy of a nice cozy house somewhere with a nanny to take care of the kid and regular booty calls from cute tatted-up rock boys.
so when she showed up boringly sober and in disappointing control of herself at the awards, she bored everyone out of their skulls. reading the teleprompter just like all the rest, she revealed her one gteat telent – reading ability. she made no mistakes. this media creation is nothing if not a VERY GOOD READER.
kids, don’t be courtney, but learn to read as well as she has.

god’s mad as hell. there were only three shout-outs to the all-powerful on monday at the ’06 billboard awards. the show started OK and then quickly devolved into a deadly bore. i wished i was shelling shrimp. i wanted to be giving foot massages to the poor on skid row. i longed to be playing in that nightmarish blues jam at a disgusting northridge bar where a FLUTE PLAYER got on stage in an outfit out of “heidi.”
god wanted out, too.
these people are such phonies. hey, who was actually driving in that lane garrison crash in beverly hills saturday where the 17-year-old was killed? why is that being kept quiet?

gwen, the yodeling has to stop. it will never be cool, it will never be hip, it will never be interesting. what’s worse is, you don’t have a song. the single is awful, there’s no melody, there’s hardly anything. it’s a yodel.
the hair looks good, tho.